Why Are You Competing Already?

For the past few months, I’ve been navigating a role that, if I’m being honest, isn't exactly my dream career, but bills don’t pay themselves. I’ve spent my time documenting everything I’ve learned to make the "learning by doing" phase a bit more manageable.

Recently, the team expanded. Within the span of a week, a new senior-level colleague joined. Since we’re tackling client service requests together, I did what I thought was the natural, professional thing to do: I handed over three months' worth of my personal notes and guides to the first newcomer, trying to foster a collaborative environment.

A second new senior colleague (who joined our company this week) joined our call to work on a specific task. The first colleague, the one I had just spent days helping and sharing my resources with, had already taken several pages of detailed notes and screenshots on this exact activity. When I suggested she pass those notes along to help our new teammate get up to speed, she baulked. Instead of sharing all of that, she sent over three/five lines of text.

It honestly left me stunned. We are all on the same team, working for the same client, facing the same steep learning curve. Why on earth are we already choosing competition over collaboration? Why hold onto information like it’s a secret weapon rather than a tool to make the whole team more efficient?

I use this episode to underline that this "gatekeeping" culture is exhausting. When you withhold information from a colleague, you aren't making yourself more valuable; you’re just making the workflow more difficult for everyone involved. We’re adults, we’re professionals, and frankly, we’re all just trying to get through the day, weel al least most of us.